Since the mid-2015, zika virus infection has broken out in South America and spread in the worldwide. Compared with the mild condition in the past, this outbreak in America should be noticed particularly. When the zika virus broke out in Brazil, there were massive microcephaly babies born at the same time. While the mothers of these babies mostly infected with the zika virus. Through the previous studies in mice, the researchers from Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology of Chinese Academy of Sciences firstly proved that zika virus is the immediate cause of microcephaly.

Mostly, the symptoms of zika virus infected person are mild. The main concern is that the pregnant women who infect zika virus may give birth to microcephaly babies. However, there is no effective therapy and vaccine for zika virus infected person. So how to prevent and treat the pregnant women who infect zika virus seems particularly important.

Through the drug screening and relative studies, the research team has found that the convalescent serum of zika patients which has high titer neutralizing antibodies can protect babies’ brains from the infection of virus and prevent the happening of microcephaly diseases. The researchers made the fetal rat brain infected by zika virus through intracranial injection and injected the convalescent serum of zika patients after infection. The researchers found that the neutralizing antibodies can effectively restrain the duplication of zika virus in vitro. When in vivo, they can obviously decrease the amount of virus in fetal brain through the placenta and blood brain barrier. So through the researches on mouse models, person infected zika virus during pregnancy is expected to be cured. This research provides the important clues for the treatment of zika virus injection.

The research result has been published on Cell Research on Dec 6^th, 2016.

Time: 2016-12-14

Source: Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology